Islamabad, May 5 (IANS): Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan claimed that his opponents have hired companies which are "preparing material" for his character assassination.

His remarks also come as PTI-linked social media accounts have warned supporters of the dangers of "deepfake", videos which use a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning to create life-like but fake videos of people, reports Dawn news.

"I had to face mafias, the biggest of which is the Sharif mafia... They always attack on a personal level because are indulging in corruption for the past 35 years. When someone (points out) their corruption, they attack a person's character," Khan said.

The former premier said that the Sharifs had made preparations to launch a character assassination drive against him after Eid.

"Now that Eid is over, you will see they are fully prepared for my character assassination. They have hired companies that are readying the material," Dawn news quoted Khan as saying.

He added that 60 per cent of the federal cabinet was out on bail.

"The father (Shehbaz) is on bail and so is the son (Hamza). Maryam is also out on bail and Nawaz Sharif has been convicted [while] his sons have fled abroad. So what (other) defence will they have?"

He said that in a democracy, they were required to give an answer for the allegations levelled against them. "You can't come up in any democracy if you are out on bail; you can't get any position."

The PTI chairman claimed that instead of giving an answer for the billions of rupees they had stolen, the Sharifs would now focus on his character assassination.